


Between Conventional Notes

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Blurring Boundaries, Fluff, Hannibal is wrapped around Will's little finger, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Scars, That specific sort of Hannigram thing where they say nothing and everything, and he wouldn't have it any other way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: "There is no urge left to hide his nakedness, if there ever was one at all, they have spent so many days bleeding across each other that the time for modesty has long past. So he merely cranes towards the presence that has appeared in the room. The sight of the other fills him, as it always does, with a terrible snatching of breath and a sort of fluttering ache of happiness."--Or. Hannibal takes a bath, and with everything it's as simple and vast as that. Written for the Hannibal Big Bang 2016 - with gorgeous art by malchikelf





	

Hannibal sheds his clothes with an unusual level of disregard, they are not his own, it is true, but on another day, in another time, even the ill fitting sweater and the thin pants would be folded up into neat squares with no wrinkles, one set atop the next on the side of the sink, or properly hung, should the item require it. 

But not now.

Now he leaves a trail of garments behind him, with as much smoothness as he is able, given the circumstances, eyes steadily on the slightly steaming bath before him.

As his own doctor, he is finally given himself permission to enjoy it. They say that physicians make their own worst patients, but he has forced himself to a strict standard of care. On the remarkably long list of what they cannot afford, infection is certainly high. He has left as little to fate as possible, knowing as he does, her wiley ways - he will waylay her at least, if he cannot prevent her hand entirely.  

And so this has meant that discounting the luxurious, but still rather curtailed, shower that had imminently followed his returned freedom, he has managed one prolonged excursion to sea and many quick, cursory rinses of his body, followed by the meticulous re-cleaning and re-bandaging of his wound. All of this around arduously long drives, dusty motel rooms, and the necessary constant movement that comes with a laughably incompetent, though all the same tiresome, manhunt being staged around your door. 

He’s always seen himself as flexible of course, within reason - certainly, he has not complained. There’s a romance to being properly hunted, with actual aim of disappearance this time and not simply of delayed drawing. An isolation that wraps around he and Will and ties them closer, though they do not immediately address their fall or the moments before it, that pleases him. 

Dawning shadows whisper their auguries in his ear, worry of abandonment, worry of lies, but at this moment, they are quieted by the presence of only ocean around them at every turn, he has more or less decided on certainty that Will has no further wish to throw himself into its waiting depths. 

More or less. 

But for now there is other water that demands his attention, the enormous bath an extravagance in the otherwise not overly ostentatious vessel. He had bought her for Will’s pleasure more so than his own, but martyrdom, that he has never proclaimed that. 

With a pleased exhale, he sinks into the warmth, allows it to embrace his form. It seeps pleasantly against the aching soreness of his tense muscles, across the too warm planes of skin, ravaged by sun and dirt, and down even into the still delicate twists of a forming scar. 

Dolarhyde’s wound, but Will’s fingers winding thread through the hole, shaping the mark to be left, his design, and no one else’s. More lovely than the jagged lines across his wrist which belong to the other only in intent. 

He raises them out of the water to consider, and then blinks past them with a curving smile dawning along his lips. 

“Hello Will.” The murmur hums over a light patter of shifting water. 

There is no urge left to hide his nakedness, if there ever was one at all, they have spent so many days bleeding across each other that the time for modesty has long past. So he merely cranes towards the presence that has appeared in the room. The sight of the other fills him, as it always does, with a terrible snatching of breath and a sort of fluttering ache of happiness. 

In prison, he would hide this feeling, channel its very existence into some raw, ravaged fury, aching and empty, and not, he suspects, nearly as blank as to be effective. But here he has no desire to disguise it, and Will is kinder too, both of them remade by their fall, surfacing to a desperate honesty which leaves Will reaching out and he accepting.

In short, they have climbed each other’s every wall, shatter, remade and unlocked, and are learning to be friends again.

Friends who perch on stools as the other one bathes. 

Chiyoh thinks they are ludicrous and sniffs and sighs, her lips in a flat disapproving smirk as Will offers that his meal that night is particularly delicious, as Hannibal covers the other’s form gently with a blanket, not remarking on his socked feet on the coffee table, or his renewed habit of sleeping on the sofa, awaiting intruders even in slumber, a habit Hannibal hopes might be eased again with the coming time at sea.

But it suits Hannibal just fine, this form of companionship.

He has always been comfortable playing between conventional notes. 

“I thought you said no baths.” There’s a light scold in the words as Will moves to rest his chin on his elbow, watching Hannibal with a crooked smile. 

“Not in perpetuity.” A raised eyebrow in response and he sinks lower into the water, allowing his limbs to press through and then relax. “The wound is healing. Healed enough, for this.” 

Will’s face is flushed from heat, and his skin holds the rays of sun. He is scented with sweat and salt in Hannibal’s pristine oasis, but all the same Hannibal reaches for him, curves his fingers around calloused ones, revels in the ever renewing spark of zeal that courses through him when Will does not pull away. 

“And these?” Will flips their twined hands instead, reclaims his own, but only to skirt it down the length of his wrist, along the lines Hannibal had just been examining. “Have they healed enough?” 

“Flesh wounds.” He replies, torn between the desire to close his eyes to allow the sensation to register more purely and the magnetic hold Will’s wandering fingers have on his gaze. “And yours?” 

They shift in tandem to lock eyes and there’s a warning there, slight, but he gazes back, unrepentant. 

“Healed enough.” 

As with the more recent of the set decorating the other’s body. 

Will watches him intently as they lapse into silence again, eyes first following along the lines of his shoulder, then down, and settling finally on the simple pleasure that comes out keenly along the crinkles around his eyes. 

Will mirrors the perception. 

Pleased.

He’s pleased in Hannibal’s pleasure. 

It steals away his air all over again, beams out of him.

Will’s gaze falls to the water. 

“Had you intended on bathing?” He cannot seem to help but inquire, he’s hungry all at once, to see the lines of Will’s body, to enjoy the dancing stretch of scar, to have more and more and more, as much as he can, to drown in it as he had in Will’s embrace, in the ocean’s unyielding kiss. 

“I could surrender the -” It’s a beginning with no real intention, but he doesn’t have to dance it out until the end. 

“No.” And then, breath. “Stay.” 

He nods, making as though to relax again, even though Will knows as well as he the bluff had been empty. 

Then there is allowance for waiting silence, because while he prods, he will only be content if Will makes his own decisions in these instances. Will be unable to support faith otherwise, and faith, they have shattered quite thoroughly, and is only beginning her fragile growth once more. 

Will’s clothes fall to mix with Hannibal’s on the ground, though it is barely apparent any longer what belongs to whom. There are other clothes, waiting in his closets now, that he will wear when he emerges from  _ this  _ baptism, but he is content with the new painted image on the marble floor of who they have become. 

Inseparable, beyond conjoined, fitting their pieces where they have caused holes with their own callous hands. Healing into each other in slow increments. 

Will slides across from him, a little wary, sharpened awareness now that layers have been shed, but not withdrawn. If anything there is challenge in his eyes as Hannibal inhales the sight of him, unbarred. Rushes down to trace his scar first, and up around the other ones, only a quick uptick towards the line along his forehead and then again to eyes as Will shutters them and disappears smoothly below the water. 

He has to stop himself from counting the seconds, absurdity, no danger here, but cannot erase the echoing panic of losing the other beneath a wave, one, two, thr- Will nudges him with the heel of his foot and he scowls down at it, before allowing air to fill his lungs again. 

“There aren’t any monsters in the bathtub, Hannibal.” He says it, determinedly casual, though he avoids direct contact. 

“No.” The shadow of annoyance has faded at once, and he settles a hand along the foot which he chooses to see as offered, sliding a palm around a heel to trace the lines of it with his mind. Will allows it, doesn’t question why, doesn’t call attention. He lets go again and not a word crosses between. 

Not even as he carefully pushes himself up, settles onto his knees on Will’s side of the bath, expectant. 

“You’re staring, Hannibal.” He gets back this time, but all the same, a hand presses firmly along the back of his neck and pulls him down. 

“We’ve talked about that.” 

But it’s murmured directly against his lips, with the roughness of stubble pressing against his cheeks, and a fingers splaying wide along his skin, so he forgets to listen. 

It’s not the first time they’ve blurred these boundaries in their friendship and there are far more left to smudge. 

And yes, he considers, tuning every last sense to the connection of their bodies, barely touching, for the amount of their skin presently available, his mouth to Will’s, Will’s teeth slight points, the beginning of a dig, the hand, pressure, warmth traveling down his spine, but it leaves them more bare than the stripping of their clothes, this suits him just fine. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for 'Between Conventional Notes'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8098372) by [bracari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bracari/pseuds/bracari)




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